Day 5--London

July 13

Not wanting to repeat the mishap of the day before where we missed our alarm, we slept with the blinds up in the room so that the sun would wake us up. That worked! We went to take a shower. In the showers, there is a little sign that says that it would take a few minutes for the hot water to go through. Well, Jenny and I waited, waited, waited and waited! We must have waited 10-15 minutes and the water was still cold! We decided to go ahead and jump in for a quick cold shower. Right when I got out, a girl who got in before I did told me that someone told her about hot showers in the bathroom down the hall and to the right.

We ate breakfast at a cafe near the hostel and took off for London. We started at Big Ben and walked to the House of Parliament (same building), Westminister Abbey and was going to hit Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards ceremony at 11:30 when we realized that we would be very early for it and decided to check Harrod's out quickly and go to Buckingham Palace.

We arrived Harrod's 5 minutes before it opened so we waited for a bit and entered with a mass of people! Sandra (Mom's best friend) informed me that there is a statue of Princess Di and Dodi Al Fayed (Dodi's father owns Harrod's) along with some memorabilia such as the last glass she drank from. She told me how to get there and Jenny's tour guide book said the same thing so we followed them and was surprised to see nothing when we got there, so we asked employees for direction to the statue. We had to ask at least 3 employees and follow a store map of the store to finally find it. We actually found it by accident (we were going to go to another place when we turned around and there it was!). I was disappointed that it only had the statue, nothing else. :( Satisfied with the viewing of the statue, we took off to see the toy and pet kingdoms that we saw while looking for the statue. We were shocked at what we saw! They had everything for children and pets at each price imaginable!

We hurried through the pet and toy kingdom to give us some time to reach the Buckingham Palace. We arrived at the Palace after some speedwalking through a park and seeing a soccer practice/game in process between men with shirts and men without shirts. We did not realize that until we were in front of them that one team had no shirts and one team had shirts. We were wondering how the men knew who were on their team. Well, now we know! :)

When we got closer to Buckingham Palace, we saw the palace, along with a huge crowd of people. Jenny and I navigated through the crowd and stood at top of three steps across the street and in front of the Palace. We waited, waited, waited and when we saw people's heads move and people taking pictures. We saw some action, such as soliders marching, soliders on horses, and soliders playing music on the street in front of us entering the palace. All that took 30 minutes and they were not finished so we decided to take advantage of our day and leave. It is a very slow moving ceremony. We thought it would be faster.

We took off to see the Tower of London, a castle that was used during one of the wars. King Henry lived in that castle during the war. It was very huge and while in the castle, I kept on imagining what life was like during that time for King Henry. There were small windows that you could peer out of, but no one would know you were looking out of it. There were circular towers that held prisoners and King Henry's bedroom (in different towers of course). There were covered pathways that connected all the towers so you could walk through the pathways and no one would know you were there. There was a room where you could touch and feel the different armor and pretend you were in the army at that time. Jenny and I tried on the hat and boy it was HEAVY!!! I can't imagine having the hat on as well as the armor! Even worse--there was also a special exhibit on the clothing that King Henry wore during his fencing matches and army times. The HORSE even had armor made out of the same material as the solider so the horse was basically carrying himself, the solider, the armor for himself and the solider!!! Wow!

We got some ice cream there, and that one met Jenny's strict taste test. HA! :) We walked around the Tower of London and to the Tower Bridge. We were thinking about going up the Tower Bridge but when we saw the number of people in line and our feet were starting to hurt, we said "Forget it". Jenny wanted to see the St. James/John/whatever cathedral so we went there and took some pictures. It was beautiful as usual, but we were tired of walking, our legs were hurting and we were hungry so we went back to the hostel and ate at the pub around the corner from the hostel. It had some of the best food we ate! Yummy!

We went back to the hostel intending to rest a little bit then explore Piccadilly Circus (the area where our hostel was at), but we both ended up taking 2 hour naps! Jenny got up and went to the Piccadilly Circus, and I decided to stay in bed, reading my book and going to bed a little early (10:00ish).

We had hoped to see the Horse Guard ceremony, but we had to choose between Tower Bridge or the Horse Guard ceremony at another location, we decided to stay with Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. Hopefully we will be able to catch it the next time if there ever is one!

For pictures of Day 5--London, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/suzyki/Day5London?authkey=Gv1sRgCObe1KXHkMzdOw&feat=directlink.